A known type of electrical contacts are those that are formed as screw machine parts from bar stock. The bar stock from which these electrical contacts are machined has to be hard enough to enable them to be subject to screw machine operations which can present problems when electrical conductors are crimped thereto due to the wire barrels breaking. These entire contacts are evenly gold plated thereover because they cannot be selectively gold plated. The insertion force when a pin is inserted thereinto is quite high.
Another type of known electrical contact assembly includes a screw machine wire barrel onto which is crimped a telescoped receptacle and hood. This type of contact can be selectively plated but a major drawback is aligning the receptacle and hood and simultaneously crimping them onto the wire barrel as properly aligned and concentric members. The wire barrel is a screw machine part and, due to its configuration, cannot be readily cold formed. The wire barrel would also be subject to breakage when crimped onto an electrical conductor because of the hardness of the metal if not subjected to annealing. The insertion force is not believed to be too low. Crimping of the receptacle onto the wire barrel does not provide a good mechanical and electrical connection and limits the diameter of the receptacle. The hood contains no beveled lead-in surface for the pin.